Editor: Baton Rouge’s transparency challenge

John Price, the assistant chief administrative officer to Mayor Kip Holden, says the use of traffic light cameras to spot red light violations in East Baton Rouge Parish—and issue tickets to those drivers who break the law—is the “most successful program the city has.” Business Report Executive Editor JR Ball wants to know how Price—or anyone else in the parish—could possibly make such a statement. Because while Price can tell citizens how much revenue the cameras have generated since being installed in 2008 ($8.4 million, after the Arizona-based company that oversees the program takes its 35% cut) and how much the Baton Rouge Police Department is budgeting to collect from them this year ($1.6 million), there’s one important statistic he doesn’t have. “What Price can’t factually tell us is if the red light program is actually doing what it’s supposed to be doing—which is improving public safety at the intersections where the cameras are located,” Ball writes in his latest column. “He can’t tell us, he says, because the collision reports are inaccurate, thanks to police officers incorrectly inputting accident locations.” In a world where “one can Google ‘Kate’s bump’ and get nearly 25 million results in 0.3 seconds,” Ball wants to know why it is “virtually impossible to see public data controlled by our city-parish and state governments.” He says Baton Rouge should become the sixth city to accept the Citizenville Challenge, and its leaders should vow to embrace civic entrepreneurs with the goal of making government more transparent to the very people it serves. Read the full column here. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.